A display is connected to most types of electronic devices. Such electronic devices include at least a processor for processing information and signals for projection of an image on an associated display. The image may include alphabetic, numeric, cartoon characters, etc. A character may have a number of objects that may be drawn by lines and curves. The processor by processing information related to the image may provide an animation of a character in the image. For example, the character may be the outline of a person. The animation on the display may show the person playing basketball. The outline of the person as represented by the character may change in a realistically simulated fashion to show various outlines of a person in successive frames showing the person jumping to a basketball hoop. A process commonly known as morphing may be used for producing the animation on the display, however, the animation may not provide a sufficiently accurate and realistic animation of the character at every frame during the animation.
Morphing is a process used for determining the images between an initial image and a destination image. The interim images are determined based on the initial and destination images. Each of the interim images differ from the previous image by only a small amount, and each image incrementally is closer to the destination image. During the animation, a viewer observes the transformation from one image to another by continuously varying images that change gradually from the initial image to the destination image.
Generally, objects such as lines and curves connecting a series of control points form the animated characters in the image. The morphing process creates the changes associated with the objects such as lines and curves for the interim images. The changes are applied to the objects beginning from the initial image and successively to lead to the objects in the final image. However, the process used for creating the changes in the objects such as lines and curves of the characters results in distortion in such a way that the animation of the character appears unreal and inaccurate. For example, a round ball may not appear as round in each interim image. When the animation is displayed, the distortion may cause the ball to appear in a different shape. A common solution may be to provide bit maps of all the images for the animation. However, processing a large set of bit maps for many images may not be practical, especially on the display of a wireless device used in a communication system. Providing animation on the wireless device display may suffer additional difficulty because of the limited resources available for wireless communication of the animation information.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved method and apparatus for morphing, and more particularly for morphing in a wireless communication system to produce character animation on a display.